Her big gun blasting away at kill-crazed mutants, Serenity's Zoe does battle in the grand tradition of Alien's Lt. Ripley. She's tough — except with her husband: Then she goes all giggly.

"I'm a lover and a fighter," says Gina Torres, who played Zoe in Firefly, the 2002 TV series, and reprised the role in Serenity. "That's what's so engaging. She is the most balanced person on that ship. She has a loving marriage (to Wash, the pilot of spaceship Serenity) and a job she embraces every morning. She likes being a soldier. She's good at it."

We can't predict the real future, but space women of the cinema future are — finally — men's equals. Zoe represents the image and status of women-in-space, but it's just one image out of many.

Also on Serenity is the cute-as-a-space-bug Kaylee (Jewel Staite). No warrior is she — Kaylee is too busy being all doe-eyed over the ship's doctor. She's also the ship's engineer and mechanic, equally at home in grease-stained dungarees or gaucho pants.

The women are equally complex — and more screwed up — on the Sci Fi Channel's hit Battlestar Galactica. Flying a fighter or punching out one of her own male comrades, Lt. "Starbuck" Thrace (Katee Sackhoff) is the orneriest, horniest pilot aboard.

Galactica's President Laura Roslin (twice Oscar-nominated Mary McDonnell) employs religious fervor to keep her terminal cancer from distracting her as she leads humanity toward a new solar system.

Even the cyborg women on the show are complex, torn between destroying men or making babies with them.

You've come a long way

The new women of space are light years removed from most of their predecessors. For decades a space woman's duty was to look sexy and be terrified until saved by a man.

In Le Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon), shot in 1902 by film pioneer Georges Méliès, men board the rocket while racily dressed Parisian dancing girls give them a send off. Probably glad to see them go.

Progress from there was hardly warp speed. The cinema future was always shackled to the here and now. Space-going females reflected a male perception of women's position in society: subservient.

Early space adventure serials did have women. Though sometimes called scientists, their function seemed to be reassuring us that Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon were manly men despite those spangles and shiny tights.

The rocket science of World War II inspired a rash of post-war space movies, and defined the women in them. In the war women left home to join the workforce, but a social backlash sent post-war women back to the kitchen and nursery, an attitude that was reflected on screen.

"It's a throwback to see women still in these subservient roles," Torres says. "They were part of the future, which was nice, but they were still getting coffee."

A rare early attempt at a more complicated character was Altaira Morbius, played by Anne Francis in the 1956 classic Forbidden Planet. Francis' character was smart and brave, but incredibly naive — Altaira had never met a man except her father.

"She was Daddy's good little girl," says Francis, who still gets fan mail for the role. "That was of that era. She's not ditzy. She's very intelligent. And innocent to the ways of (Earth) that the men had come from."

The filmmakers made full use of Francis' looks: She's usually clothed in diaphanous miniskirts. The astronauts want to protect her from monsters, but not from themselves.

"Each one wanted to be the one who teaches her about life," says Francis with a laugh.

At least Altaira doesn't melt into a puddle of mush when the famous Monster from the Id attacks, though she still needs rescuing.

"Science-fiction films were so involved with lots of screaming, and here comes a monster," Francis says. "It was a certain genre they had fallen into."

Let's get physical

If the women in 1950s space were terrified and subservient, the space-ettes of the 1960s, the era of the sexual revolution, could at least be more physical.

In Barbarella, now a camp classic, Jane Fonda plays the title character as a ditzy over-sexed space girl dressed in fetishy futuristic costumes.

While Barbarella was bedding down, one TV series made small but important steps toward space equality. Star Trek featured a few women in positions of authority when it was a TV series (1966-69). Unfortunately, most of them were aliens who fell madly in love with Capt. Kirk.

Trek creator Gene Roddenberry tried a bigger step. The original pilot featured Majel Barrett, later Roddenberry's wife, as the starship's analytical second in command. Faint-hearted studio and network executives did not like a woman in a position of authority. When the series went on the air, Barrett was demoted to nurse, and the Enterprise was basically an all-boys club.

Women viewers had to try to identify with Yeoman Rand (Grace Lee Whitney), who practically sat on the captain's lap most of the first season, or Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols). Uhura, the highest-ranking woman aboard, still had to wear tiny skirts to show off her shapely legs.

The Star Trek series roughly reflect women's status in then contemporary society. The Next Generation (1987-1994) still found men firmly in command, though women were often consulted. Not until Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001) did the series finally let a woman truly rule, with Capt. Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) in command. She didn't even have to wear miniskirts.

Then came Ripley

If Barbarella is the queen of space babedom, Ellen Ripley is the undisputed platoon commander of warrior women.

"The quintessential powerful female role is Ripley from the Alien movies," says Engler.

Ripley, played with a sinewy, angry conviction by Sigourney Weaver — the role made her a star in 1979 — convincingly out-fought and out-thought her male comrades and her slathering alien foe. She remains unsurpassed.

"She was the go-to gal," says Torres. "In (Aliens) she had to assume a position of power. I just remember thinking, 'Wow, that's fantastic. It's not just Uhura grabbing the console. This is a woman making something happen.' "

But Ripley was more than a fighter. Heroics aside, she was a complex woman. Space women of 2005 owe her a great a salute.

Putting women in their space

Their future is long past but we still have a warm spot for those screaming, miniskirted, monster-baiting, rocket bunnies.

In cult favorite This Island Earth (1955), Dr. Ruth Adams (Faith Domergue) is a scientist, but her main function is to scream when the giant-brained Metalunan mutant alien tries to snap his pincher claws on her at the film's climax.

Disney did all the special effects for Forbidden Planet (1956) except for Anne Francis as Altaira, the innocent but oh-so-provocative daughter in this space version of Shakespeare's The Tempest. She had power over men and robots.

Barbarella (1968) is the undisputed queen of space babedom. In 2004, readers of the influential British movie magazine Film Review voted Barbarella (Jane Fonda) the sexist character in science-fiction movies, beating out Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) of The Fifth Element. Although Barbarella was a parody, its title character foreshadowed future space warriors such as Zoe and Ripley.

Two years before Alien, Star Wars' Princess Leia was fighting and fussing alongside Han and Luke. But she was still clearly ``the girl'' who got her way more from royal rank than from equality. And how about that bondage gear in Return of the Jedi?

We may forget the name Col. Wilma Deering, but not actress Erin Gray of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979-81). A military commander who defended Earth, she still wore clingy jumpsuits and looked quite scared when menaced by aliens. We still want to save her.

Star Trek: The Next Generation boasted one of TV's first space-warrior women, Lt. Yar (Denise Crosby), chief of security. Yar was tough but unmistakably a woman: she seduced android Data in the first season. Alas, Crosby bailed out of the show the first season and the job went to a man.